By Anonymous

I lost my father in 2014 and this had a profound impact on me. My faith and connection with Allah were my saving grace, and so I felt I was ready to complete the fifth pillar of Islam. I am so grateful I had the opportunity to go with my husband, Alhumdulilah he was the best of companions!

We went last year in July 2023, and I can definitely say that how one can go about booking Hajj has dramatically changed for the worst! The Saudi government have taken charge and created a new way of booking Hajj via a portal. No longer can potential pilgrims go through the traditional method of using a local tour operator from the community to manage their Hajj booking. The portal is called Nusuk and a nightmare to navigate. Navigating the portal and booking a Hajj package is not for the faint hearted. Uploading documents and passing the verification stage is long winded. The system crashes every so often as it is unable deal with the amount of people trying to access the portal and the list goes on….

...it took our 15-year-old over 15 hours to book our package! This has now made us indebted to her in this world and the hereafter and earned her the name of ‘golden clicker’!

2 members of my family took it in turns to book our Hajj package and in the end, it took our 15-year-old over 15 hours to book our package! This has now made us indebted to her in this world and the hereafter and earned her the name of ‘golden clicker’! I feel so sad for the older generation as the new booking system is not something they will be comfortable in navigating and ultimately, they will now need to rely on others to book Hajj for them.

However, once it was booked, we could focus on preparation. Reading and listening to talks about Hajj was very useful. Listening to friends and families about their experiences was also wonderful. But preparing physically was not something that crossed my mind until everyone around me started asking “so how many steps are you doing every day?” A concerned colleague was so worried, she even set up weekly walks to motivate and prepare me prior to going on Hajj. I am pleased to say I attended her walks every week and managed to get over 10k steps in each time! Other colleagues came together and brought me lots of items to take to Hajj. Their kindness will stay with me forever and I pray Allah rewards them only with goodness. Ameen.

Hajj is one of the biggest journeys a Muslim will undertake. Hajj is physically demanding on the body; you need to be fit and able as it requires a huge amount of walking!! Sensible footwear is a must! It is emotionally challenging because you are continually asking yourself if you are carrying out the rituals in the right manner, will Allah accept your efforts and questioning whether you conducted yourself in the manner Allah will be most pleased.

Like with everything in life, Hajj will change you only if you’re ready to change yourself.

Hajj is certainly a journey of a lifetime and leaves you spiritually awaked and wanting to be the best version of yourself. There is a saying in my community that “another word for Hajj is patience.” Your patience will be tested many times over during Hajj. Not because people will go out of the way to hurt you or anger you. But when there are millions of people living and moving around in a confined space, there will be times that things will not go your way. It is in times like these, that you have to be patient, bite your lip and be forgiving. Why? Because you are at Hajj, at the invitation of Allah. You are there for a greater purpose…asking Allah for His forgiveness. That should be your only and ultimate goal. Like with everything in life, Hajj will change you only if you’re ready to change yourself.

Overall, it was indeed a life-changing experience. Standing in Arafah will forever stay with me. It was the highlight of Hajj and such a spiritually uplifting experience. Compared to what I thought it would be like, it definitely exceeded my expectations a million times and flew by so quick! Inshallah it will be the same for those invited on Hajj this year in 2024.

There are many tests in this life, but it is ultimately our attitudes and actions that will define how we handle them. For all the buzzwords used to describe Hajj, there really isn’t any single adjective that can do it justice. Hajj is hard, Hajj is powerful, Hajj is inspiring, but ultimately, Hajj is change.